Online Sports Betting: Lawful or Unlawful?

Sports betting or gambling has become more and more popular through the years. Its popularity was further intensified together with the growth of online sports betting, also known as internet gambling. However, online sports betting have long been the topic of most controversies. And, one particular section of discussion is its legality.

Usually, in terms of considering online sports betting, it’s very common for anyone to wonder whether theyre breaching any local or state law. As you may know, sports betting have been deemed illegal in many countries in the world, and one particular area that strongly uphold anti-sports betting law is definitely the North America. In this region, most states and even the government have passed legislations about whether or how it’s lawful or otherwise to gamble online, and offline.

However, it is just until recently that this regulating online sports betting was left entirely on the discretion of the individual states in North America, and to some degree, the dawn of online sports betting created certain degrees of confusion about the jurisdiction. One main question that prevails is who runs the laws in the virtual world. As you may know, a few of the current gambling laws were generally created and proposed before the coming of the internet. This truth is what actually helps make the application to those established laws accessible to different interpretation.

Besides the question on the online sports betting laws, another question was raised by the concerned public, that is, when it is legal to run sports betting on the web or offshore and take action from clients in the United States? Well, the common answer to this by the US government is always that offshore or online sports betting aren’t legal.

So it’s given that online sports betting are deemed illegal with the US government. However, numerous reports have revealed that no bills have been passed to stop the concept of online sports betting. Much worse is that, several efforts to pass bills in order to prevent the enduring rise in popularity of online sports betting dramatically failed.

Perhaps a particular belief that caused the failure of the passing of these anti-sports gambling laws would be that the government has placed most of the responsibility of the legislations for gambling in the hands of individual states, in which some of those states have approved the practice of online sports gambling.

Several of those states in reality voted on legalizing the internet sports betting, and North Dakota is one of them. On the other hand, there are other states like Illinois which have added certain legislations that strictly prohibit the promotion of internet casinos within the state. As far as I know, only three states in the US have strongly prohibited its people from gambling beyond the state borders: California, Louisiana and Nevada.

Today, since some states have enforced anti-gambling laws, although loosely, several sportsbooks on the internet have decided to remain offshore in foreign countries. And, to prevent breaching the laws, they rather set up their computer servers also offshore. It is just somehow essential to note that although anti-gambling laws are passed, no citizen has even been arrested for considering online sports betting.